Buzz Aldrin's freaky space travel story

[n2doc]

snip:

All of a sudden I saw a flash, and then another flash. And before I could move my eye to see what it was, it was gone. And then maybe a streak. And I kept seeing these, until I decided I wanted to go to sleep.

So when we had one day left coming back and I said to the other two guys, “You guys see anything funny last night, like some flashes of light, or something? Mike, did you see anything?”

“No, I didn’t see anything.”

“Neil?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, I saw about a hundred of them.”

Well, it was obviously inside the spacecraft . So we came back and reported that afterward. And to get to the bottom of if, the next flight was briefed. And they went up there. And they could see the flashes with their eyes shut.

Which meant that high Z particles were penetrating the spacecraft, your helmet, everything else -- and impacting the retina of your eye. And it’s an example of the kind of particles that are out there en route to human travel to Mars and so forth that we need to keep track of. And when they hit your brain, you just lost a cell of two of memory. So I guess that was one of the most unusual things we saw.

http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/07/buzz-aldrins-fr.html

[Warren DeMontague]

1. Cosmic rays. One of the big hurdles for long duration space flight outside of LEO.

I'm willing to bet there are ways to mitigate it, but the only really workable ones that I've heard of so far all involve large amounts of water or other insulating material wrapped around the living quarters. Which adds weight, obviously.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. I think with time we will develop materials that can deal with this. We are already

seeing potential for improvements of the astronauts' spacewalk suits, particularly where weight and flexibility matter. Perhaps similar adaptations can be made for the vehicles themselves? (Not that I think I want to see a shuttle or rocket encased in a giant wetsuit sort of thing. That would just be silly. :P)

[soothsayer]

2. shoulda worn their tin foil hats

[Cheap_Trick]

4. They need to be careful...

Cosmic rays is what gave the Fantastic Four their powers.....